March 4, 2011 | BIll Snyder

Ten Vanderbilt University faculty members who have been named to endowed chairs, five of whom are from the School of Medicine, were honored Monday for their achievements.

The ceremony at the Student Life Center was the first of six celebrations that will be held in 2011 to honor 60 new endowed chair holders, said Richard McCarty, Ph.D., Vanderbilt’s provost and vice chancellor for Academic Affairs.

“This is a significant moment for Vanderbilt, and our new chair holders will create ripple effects throughout the institution for years to come,” McCarty said.

“A university’s greatness is reflected in the quality of its faculty,” said Jeff Balser, M.D., Ph.D., vice chancellor for Health Affairs and dean of the School of Medicine.

“You are the people who are having the impact that we hope to have around the world, and we want to recognize that.”

The new chairs are:

Victor Anderson, Ph.D., Oberlin Theological School Chair and professor of African American and Diaspora Studies and Religious Studies;

Yanqin Fan, Ph.D., Centennial Chair in Economics and professor of Economics and Mathematics;

Tong Li, Ph.D., Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in Social and Natural Sciences and chair of the Department of Economics;

David Wasserman, Ph.D., Annie Mary Lyle Chair and professor of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics; and

John Weymark, Ph.D., Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in Social and Natural Sciences and vice chair of the Department of Economics.

The major university initiative to recruit and retain outstanding scholars and teachers with the new chairs was announced by Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos last August.

Some of the chairs were made possible by “excellent financial management,” said McCarty, who thanked the university’s chief investment officer, Matthew Wright, MBA, for making “great things happen with our endowment.”

Other chairs are newly endowed. To the donors and their family members who had endowed new chairs, Balser said, “There are very few things you can do that have this kind of lasting impact … We’re deeply grateful for your generosity.”